Nightfall eBook

“Thank you! But I wasn’t going to
say anything of the sort. The fact is that for
a long while I’ve been making up my mind to see
you some time when you were in England: there
was no hurry, because so long as my father’s
alive I can do nothing, but when I heard you were
coming to Wanhope the opportunity was too good to
be missed. Railway fares,” Val added with
a preoccupied smile, “are a consideration to
me. So don’t walk away yet, Hyde, please.
I have such a vivid recollection of the last time
we met. Between the lines at dawn. Do you
remember?”

“Everything, Val.”

“You were badly hurt, but before you fainted
you dragged a promise out of me.”

“Dragged it out of you?” Lawrence repeated:
“that’s one way of putting it!”

“But I made some feeble resistance at the time,”
said Val mildly. “My head wasn’t
clear then or for a long while after, but I had a—­a
presentiment that it was a mistake. You meant
it kindly.” Had he? Lawrence laughed.
He had never been able, to analyse the complex of
instincts and passions that had determined his dealings
with Stafford on that dim day between the lines.

“You were in a damned funk weren’t you,
Val?”

Stafford gave a slight start, the reaction of the
prisoner under a blow. But apart from the coarse
cynicism of it, which irritated him, it was no more
than he had foreseen, and from then on till the end
he did not flinch.

“Yes, anything you like: you can’t
overstate it. But my point is that I gave you
my parole. Will you release me from it?”

“Good God!” said Lawrence.

He had never been more surprised in his life.
“Come in: let us talk this over in the
light.”

CHAPTER VII

Through the open windows of the drawingroom, where
candlesticks of twisted silver glimmered among Laura’s
old, silvery brocades, and dim mirrors, and branches
of pink and white rosebuds blooming deliciously in
rose-coloured Dubarry jars, the two men came in together,
Lawrence keenly on the watch. But observation
was wasted on Stafford who had nothing to conceal,
who was merely what he appeared to be, a faded and
tired-looking man of middle height, with blue eyes
and brown hair turning grey, and wellworn evening
clothes a trifle rubbed at the cuffs. It was difficult
to connect this gentle and unassuming person with
the fiery memory of the war, and Lawrence without
apology took hold of Stafford’s arm like a surgeon
and tried to flex the rigid elbow-muscles, and to
distinguish with his fingers used to handling wounds
the hard seams and hollows below its shrunken joint.
The action, which was overbearing was by no means
redeemed by the intention, which was brutal.